I Toe You So

Some people are born storytellers. Others have to work at it.

I told a tale on my very first super-secret blog about an incident in my classroom many years ago. I am sharing it with you today. It's too good (in my opinion) to linger in the archives. And I don't foresee a Bad Toe Day anthology calling out for stories anytime in the near future. The event occurred when I was teaching at-risk students. Class size was kept to a maximum of ten. The goal was to assist students with their study/organizational/social skills in order to prevent them from falling behind. From failing to graduate with their class. I was cheerleader, tutor, receptive ear, and harsh taskmistress, all rolled into one. I loved it. Every day, I learned something new from my students. This day was no exception.

'Susie' rushed in right as the tardy bell rang. She plopped her books down and slid into her desk. "I'm really tired today. I spent all last night at the emergency room." The whole class leaned forward. Including me. The work could wait five minutes. One of our tight-knit group was stressed.

"Dad was outside chopping wood. Mom and I heard a scream, so we ran outside. Dad had hit his foot with the axe, and cut off his big toe, right through the shoe. Mom hollered at me: 'Susie! Run in the house and get a baggie and some towels!' I ran in. The baggie was to put the toe in. Mom wrapped the towels around Dad's foot, and told me to put the toe in the bag. I said, 'Uh-uuhh.' Mom told me 'Just do it!' But I couldn't. It had big black hairs growing out of it. I didn't want to touch it. But Mom kept telling me we needed the toe."

"I went back in the house and got a pair of tweezers and picked up the toe by those hairs and put it in the baggie. Then Mom said to get some ice to put in it, and we put Dad in the car and took him to the emergency room. There was blood all over the towels."

"When we got there, they took him in and said they were glad we brought the toe. It took them a long time, but they sewed it back on."

We were all on the edges of our seats, hanging onto every word. "So he's still at the hospital?" I asked.

"No, they let him come home. They gave him some pain medicine."

"They let him come home last night? Didn't they want to observe him after the surgery?" I couldn't believe they didn't watch him closer--even though this was a hick-town hospital.

"No. They just stitched it back on in the emergency room. He said the pain medicine worked really good. But then last night he was supposed to keep it propped up, but he wanted some more ice to put in his soda. He got up to walk to the kitchen, and he hit his toe on the leg of the table."

"Owwww!" we all said together.

"Yeah, it hurt him a lot, because when he hit it, his toe popped off, and we had to put it back on with duct tape."

The room was silent. We looked at each other. "Hey...you're making that up," I told Susie.

"Yeah. First hour believed me, too."

She totally had me reeled in. I was buying every minute of it, until the part about where they sewed the toe on in the emergency room. I watched ER. I know that you need a specialist and an operating room to hook up the nerves and blood vessels again.

But she told such a good story.